On July 5, 2022, President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to retired Army Maj. John J. Duffy for conspicuous gallantry while serving as the sole American adviser with the 11th Airborne Battalion, Vietnamese Airborne Division. The U.S. military’s highest decoration was presented 50 years after Duffy’s heroic conduct on April 14-15, 1972.
Duffy’s story and that of the acting South Vietnamese battalion commander, Maj. Le Van Me, during the North Vietnamese Army’s Easter Offensive are described with riveting. On March 31, 1972, the 2nd Brigade, Vietnamese Airborne Division, was deployed to the Central Highlands and ordered to occupy old U.S. firebases on terrain nicknamed “Rocket Ridge,” the key high ground northeast of the provincial capital, Kontum.
